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Wednesday, February 25, 2015

I haven't written here in a while. I had to relearn how. Most of what I need to write goes on Facebook and then is forgotten. This is a story that I won't be able to forget.

Three nights ago, near midnight, I heard a car start in the garage. I thought it was my old van, the vehicle that I allow my nephew to drive. I thought it was strange he was leaving the house so late especially on a school night, but he had been working on an AP class project all day and I thought maybe he had an emergency run to a store for some needed item. I fell back to sleep quickly, but then Carlos got up to use the bathroom. I was settling back into lala land when I felt cold air and smelled something. Carlos came back into the bedroom and I asked him what was that smell. He said the door leading into the garage was open so he closed it. I thought that the nephew, who I thought had just left, had accidentally left the door open. I grumbled something about the nephew and went back to my pursuit of sleep. Almost immediately, I heard strange noises like banging so I jumped out of bed and opened the door leading to the garage. Both cars were there so the nephew obviously hadn't left the house. My car headlights were on, and, this is the FREAKY part, my car was trying to start. BY ITSELF! It was cranking for a second and stopping and cranking again for like three or four times. Then it started and immediately shut off. My first thought was someone must be in the car. I looked at the door leading outside and it was locked and the garage door was shut. I looked closely inside the car, but no one was in it. I had left the keys in the ignition from a shopping mall run six hours earlier so I pulled the keys from the ignition. That's when the fear factor kicked in and I started yelling for Carlos. He would have thought I was nuts except when he had closed the garage door, he saw the lights of my car turning amber and shutting off.

I hadn't told Carlos the full story of my brother-in-law until three nights ago. To recap an old story, my brother-in-law drove home drunk as a skunk around 2 AM on Thanksgiving morning, November 24, 2011. He parked his car in the garage, closed the garage door, and promptly passed out before shutting off his car. The boys found him dead after the carbon monoxide detector went off around 7 AM. Their mother died in an car accident on February 24, 2010. I moved back to Iowa immediately to get custody of the boys and moved into their house. I also told Carlos that my dog Daisy, who was old, deaf, and blind, would sniff, scratch, growl, and bark at the door leading into the garage for weeks after I moved in, which, of course, freaked the hell out of me. Then nothing happened, that I can recall, for nearly three years until three nights ago. I don't really believe in ghosts, the supernatural, Loch Ness monster, Big Foot, UFO's, and other such things so I started searching the internet for Chevy Cruze's recall notices and problems of it starting itself with keys in the ignition. We couldn't sleep anyway. No reports. Nothing. Nada. It doesn't even have a remote starter. The next day I called the dealership's service department and they have never heard of a Cruze trying to crank on its own even if the keys were in the ignition. My mind keeps telling me there has to be some logical explanation. My logical explanation is telling me that...

MY CAR WAS TRYING TO START ON ITS OWN, WITNESSED BY MY OWN EYES, IN THE SPOT WHERE MY BROTHER-IN-LAW DIED ON THE 5TH ANNIVERSARY OF MY SISTER'S DEATH.

Since everyone swears they did not leave the door open and I didn't feel any cold air coming in before Carlos went to the bathroom, some force must have opened it to let the carbon monoxide fumes in the house from the car that was trying to start itself.

My car is going in for service at the dealership tomorrow. I hope they can perform an exorcism.

Who Am I?

I taught 5th grade for 2 years in Mexico near the border of Texas. Unfortunately, gun battles, grenades, narco-blockades, and thieves ran me out of town. Then, by a twist of fate, I became the guardian to my orphaned nephews and moved to the safer, saner, and much colder state of Iowa.